scheme-handler-cross

Project Overview

Scheme-Handler is a cross-platform URL scheme tool rewritten in Rust, supporting Windows, Linux, and macOS. It lets you register a custom protocol for a desktop app so a browser can launch it with arguments in one click. It also offers an optional local HTTP Bridge that hands m3u8 text from browser scripts to the player.

Hand a video link in the browser straight to your local player.

Key Features

• Protocol registration: adds a custom URL scheme for desktop apps so browsers can launch them
• Cross-platform: the same workflow on Windows, Linux, and macOS
• Custom arguments: passes arbitrary launch commands via gzip-compressed arguments
• Graphical UI: add apps and write registry entries with a few clicks
• HTTP Bridge: an optional local service that serves m3u8 text to the player
• Multiple packages: Inno Setup installer, deb package, and dmg image

Target Audience

• Users who want to open web videos in a local player
• Users who need the browser to launch local programs
• Advanced users on Windows, Linux, or macOS
• Developers writing userscripts

Quick Start

1. Download the package for your platform from Releases and install it as described in RELEASE.md
2. Open the app and click + to add an application
3. Enter the app name on the left and pick the executable to launch on the right, such as mpv.exe
4. Click + Add to Registry to finish registration
5. Trigger it from a browser script via ush://${app_name}?${gzip_args}

Core Advantages

• Configure once: after registration the browser can launch the local program long-term
• Private and safe: the Bridge binds only to 127.0.0.1 and never listens on the LAN
• Controlled cache: m3u8 is kept in memory and cleared automatically after 30 minutes
• Single responsibility: the Bridge only stores and serves m3u8, never proxying video segments

System Requirements

Item	Requirement
OS	Windows, Linux, macOS
Architecture	Windows x86_64, Linux amd64, macOS x86_64 and arm64
Package types	Windows portable EXE, deb, dmg

Notes

• The app name must match the one used in the script, including letter case
• The HTTP Bridge starts only when the URL contains needServer=1
• The Bridge does not handle Referer, Cookie, or Authorization; the player requests those itself
• A single m3u8 is capped at 16 MiB, and unused entries are cleaned up automatically